Living Out Loud with Darian

Just when I thought the far right wing extremists had lost their minds by proposing a federal marriage amendment to ban same sex marriage in America, then losing horribly each time the amendment has gone to the floor for a vote, I came across this piece of garbage online last night that I found to be humorous and deeply troubling at the same time.

Dated on May 16, 2006 the following letter was written by Thomas McClusky of the Family Research Council to his local state representative to urge an amendment to cut the funding for the
National Endowment for the Arts .

May 18, 2006

Representative
MERGEFIELD "ADDR_1" US House of Representatives
MERGEFIELD "CITY" Washington, MERGEFIELD "STATE" DC 20515

Dear Representative:

On behalf of Family Research Council and the families we represent, I want to urge you to vote in favor of Congressman Bob Beauprez’s amendment on the National Endowment for the Arts to H.R. 5386, Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2007. Congressman Beauprez’s amendment decreases $30 million in funds from the Nation Endowment for the Arts and increases by $28.7 million in funds for the Wildland Fire Management to be used by the U.S. Forest Service for thinning projects to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires. We support this amendment.

The NEA has consistently funded, produced, and distributed morally objectionable art that frequently included attacks on religion, traditional art forms, and families. The NEA has also been a forum for the promotion of homosexuality, pornography and other sexually explicit material.

We will strongly urge you to support this pro-family amendment. Family Research Council will be scoring this vote in our scorecard for the Second Session of the 109th Congress to be published this fall.

Sincerely,

EMBED MSPhotoEd.3
Thomas McClusky
Vice President of Government Affairs
Family Research Council

I can almost not believe what I've just read ! But this urgent letter is coming from the same group of people who have the same belief system as the "traditional" bigots Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. If you remember these were the same men who blamed the events of 9/11 on the homosexuals.

I was a scholarship receipient from the NEA in 1998 for achievements in dance and musical theater performance and I believe it goes without saying how important the arts and the NEA is in the lives of so many young people.

It has been proven that the education of a child is greatly enhanced when the arts is apart of his/her curriculum. The outrageous claims by the Family Research Council that the NEA promotes homosexuality, pornography, and sexually explicit material is yet another example of how these people will pull bogus claims out of their ass to serve their own twisted homophobic agenda.

Obviously they haven't heard of the saying "Art imitates life", my guess is that's why they're so upset.